House Tepet
For centuries, the Realm had three martial Houses that controlled the lion’s share of the legions: House Cathak, House Sesus and House Tepet. And then, in the space of three months, the Tepet legions were wiped out, with very few survivors. In a short span of time, all that the Realm had taken for granted for so long was rendered invalid. What had once seemed reliable and absolute was now plagued with uncertainty. With the destruction of the Tepet legions, a large portion of several generations of Tepets - officers, soldiers, savants, chroniclers, and even a few bureaucrats attached to the legions - were annihilated, and thousands of lives back in the Realm were suddenly, horribly different. Power equations that had held true in the Realm for centuries suddenly had to be recalculated. House Tepet went from commanding five of the most powerful and well-equipped legions in the Realm and a small mercenary force, to commanding nothing but the highly irregular military unit humorously called the Red-Piss Legion. The Dragon-Blooded of House Tepet were reduced to just over a third of their previous numbers, most of whom were retired elders in teaching positions or students in the academies. The remnants of the House are struggling to regain their footing. The other Houses, which once treated Tepet with respect, now look at members of the House with the same expression usually reserved for condemned men and the terminally ill. The other Houses grieve for House Tepet even as they look for ways to turn its misfortune into their gain. Meanwhile, the remaining Exalts of the House try to convince the Realm that the House is not dead, and they have commenced an aggressive adoption campaign to avoid this fate. MASTER(S) OF THE HOUSE Tepet himself has been dead for centuries, and the House is led by his five Dragon-Blooded children, Jita, Jyuko, Marek, Mokairo and Vergus. In better days, all five had radically different notions of what agendas they felt the House should pursue, but their goals overlapped just enough to keep real animosity from erupting. Since the destruction of the Tepet legions, conflict among the elders has faded into silence. There is no more room for dissent, but even now, the five seem to be in a state of shock. Where once there was bickering and heated rhetoric, meetings of the five are now somber to the point of being stultifying. MAJOR LINES House Tepet has seen five major offshoots from the main family line. Two produced by House elders Marek and Vergus, three produced by Tepet grandchildren, and a recent offshoot established just over a century ago. The three most powerful and respected households, Tepet Marek, Tepet Vergus and Tepet Tilis, were essentially family units of the Tepet legions and lost all but a handful of their members, Exalted and mortal alike. Of the remaining three households, Tepet Nerigus and Tepet Berel are oriented around mercantile interests, while the small Tepet Deramol household is far more interested in leisure pursuits such as hunting and parties. The remaining households have little idea how to deal with their tributaries now that House Tepet has lost its military wing. Not only is the barbaric Vermilion Legion inappropriate for legitimate military missions (in the eyes of the House elders, anyway), it cannot be redeployed from its campaign in the Southwest. Tribute, predictably, has stopped coming in from nearly three quarters of the House’s tributaries. Morale in the House remains so low that no one has addressed the issue yet, although it’s clear that something has to be done. All Tepet households have traditionally been aspected toward Air, although the House’s recent mass adoption campaign will likely change that. ECONOMICS The fortunes of House Tepet, which once seemed assured and perpetual, are now the stuff of history. The House has no means of enforcing the collection of its rightful tribute. Now that it lacks legions, or even the money for a larger mercenary force, it is unlikely that the House’s satrapies will continue to send it anything at all. The House’s two merchant lines, Tepet Nerigus and Tepet Berel, and the strength of Lord’s Crossing as a major trading center are the only things sustaining the House at this point. While the House can raid its coffers for now—Tepet was once a very rich House—it can’t sustain itself for long at this rate. The Regent, himself a Tepet, has arranged for a slight increase in imperial support for the House in the form of a “bereavement subsidy.” The subsidy has slowed the emptying of the Tepet vaults a little, but the fact remains that Tepet needs to regain its footing through either a new source of wealth or a new source of power—neither of which appears to be forthcoming anytime soon. The surviving military members of the House are enacting something of a draft on the remaining Tepet households in effort to rebuild the House’s legions. The House is adopting dozens of lost eggs from across the Realm to replenish its numbers. The elders have placed their unanimous support behind these actions as a last-ditch effort to save the House from dissolving entirely. A number of old and renowned Tepet generals have come out of retirement to lead this effort, and many young Tepets are being allowed to graduate early from the House of Bells to fi ll in the ranks. Some young Tepet Exalted are even being taken out of the Spiral Academy and placed instead in the House of Bells or the Cloister of Wisdom to prepare them for the life of a legionnaire that has now been chosen for them. GOALS AND ALLIANCES Tepet is having trouble maintaining its alliances. Other Dynastic Houses once found it all well and good to marry into House Tepet, but that was when it was a major military powerhouse. In the wake of recent events, though, most Houses are breaking off long-held engagements as sons and daughters are now being offered to the scions of other Great Houses instead. The proud elders of House Tepet don’t want to appear desperate—though they certainly are. They are currently cashing in every last favor owed them by the other Dynastic Houses (and that’s a lot of favors). Marriages arranged to take place many years hence are being moved up and performed now, before Tepet loses any further standing. Young Tepets are being sent out to explore any and all possibilities for new business opportunities (including some niches currently managed by House Nellens, which is causing a diplomatic rift between the two Houses). In the wake of its recent losses, House Tepet is also proffering marriage into a Dynastic House to a number of outcastes at Pasiap’s Stair in exchange for service in what might become the new Tepet legion. Although the House’s elders dread the effects such marriages might have on the House’s purity of aspect, it’s preferable to weakening the blood even worse by marrying patricians. ILLUSTRIOUS DYNASTS OF THE HOUSE TEPET ARADA One of the great legion generals, much respected and much decorated, Tepet Arada has become a shadow of his former self in the wake of the destruction of the Tepet legions. It was he who commanded one of those legions to its destruction and survived only through a strange quirk of fate. While he feels he bears some responsibility for the defeat, he firmly believes House Tepet was deliberately set up to fail in order to lessen the House’s claim to the Scarlet Throne. To say that he’s bitter would understate the deep disillusionment, grief and rage that haunts him. Since the defeat, the one thing Arada has nursed more than his bitterness is his sake bottle. The House elders, including his father, have offered Arada many olive branches to come out of his monastic retirement and to serve his House one last time by helping to reestablish a legion for his family. While he resents the request on all levels, his dedication to military ideals and his family make it unlikely that he’ll refuse. TEPET EJAVA, THE ROSEBLACK Possessing all the native cunning of her military family as well as years of hard-won battle experience and a strategic genius that is hers alone, Tepet Ejava is a general commanding the ragtag force that House Tepet is trying to call a legion. While it does constitute the single largest body of troops surviving from the once-proud Tepet legions, her force is little more than a motley crew of mercenaries, the Red-Piss Legion and the few lucky Tepet legionnaires that survived the campaign against the Bull of the North. She is currently making war on various pirate and smuggler bases in the southwest. Ejava herself, having caught wind of a possible plot to have her killed before House Tepet can establish another “legion,” is extending the mission as long as possible in hopes of outlasting the conspiracy.